


The Boy of Mud and Stitches

by Lightning of Farosh (Medea_Nunc_Sum)



Series: Tales of Burning Golden Flowers [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hyrule-Centric, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Positive Hyrule Fic, Smart Hyrule, Various Zelda II enemies, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22301470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea_Nunc_Sum/pseuds/Lightning%20of%20Farosh
Summary: “We’re lost.”Hyrule, kneeling to Legend’s left, sighed. He had his hands half buried in dirt and dead leaves, digging for...whateverit was that had warranted them wandering away from the camp.  “Yes,” he said with painstaking patience, refusing to look up. “You saying it for thefifthtime will not magically make youun-lost.”
Relationships: Hyrule & Legend (Linked Universe)
Series: Tales of Burning Golden Flowers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605289
Comments: 20
Kudos: 199





	The Boy of Mud and Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Bad Things Happen Bingo
> 
> Prompt: Ambush

“We’re lost.”

Hyrule, kneeling to Legend’s left, sighed. He had his hands half buried in dirt and dead leaves, digging for... _whatever_ it was that had warranted them wandering away from the camp. “Yes,” he said with painstaking patience, refusing to look up. “You saying it for the _fifth_ time will not magically make you _un-lost_.”

Birds sang in the trees above them, watching the two boys with black, beady eyes. A dear trail wound its way past them, littered with hoof and paw tracks that vanished into the underbrush. High above, a woodpecker tapped against a trunk, the sound vibrating through wood and the ground.

Grunting, Legend leaned back against a nearby tree. He ducked his head down, watching through his bangs as Hyrule reached the small dagger hidden in one of his boots. It was a jagged, rusted thing he’d found sometime when he was a kid. A survivor of the raids that had happened after Ganon had stolen the Triforce of Power and kidnapped Princess Zelda.

He kept it hidden away, not wanting to incur the same wrathful look Wild got from Four every time he drew one of his many, breakable swords. 

Blade steady—the hand holding it practiced—Hyrule held down a handful of meaty roots and sawed through them. Dirt clung beneath his nails, the rough texture nipping at his skin. One by one, they broke off and he wiped off the dirt best he could and shoved each one into his bag.

“That should be enough,” Hyrule said, getting to his feet. He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and looked up at the darkening sky. The sun hadn’t dipped beyond the canopy just yet and slivers of gold snuck their way through the leaves, glimmering like ancient myths as they danced amongst the trees.

“ _Great_ ,” Legend muttered and was ignored.

The sun had been at their backs when they’d left the camp so...

Turning on his heel, Hyrule walked towards the impending twilight. A squirrel darted away from his feet, scrambling up a creaking tree and chattering angrily from the top boughs as he passed. He grinned at it, hoisting his pack higher on his shoulder and heard Legend’s footsteps hurry to catch up.

They walked on in silence for a while, dodging around roots and rocks, pushing through bushes and leaves.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

 _Not even five minutes._ Hyrule glanced back at his companion. “Sort of,” he said with a small shrug.

“‘ _Sort of’_?” Legend kicked out at a rock and watched it bounce from the base of a tree and roll to a stop in a cluster of twigs. “That doesn’t fill me with much confidence.”

“You didn’t _have_ to come,” Hyrule didn’t look back at him, keeping his eyes on the ground stretched before them and the slowly fading sunlight. “Wild was more than happy to go with me.”

“And then we’d have to send someone out to find _both_ of you,” Legend rolled his eyes. “No thanks.”

Humming, Hyrule didn’t to answer. He and Wild weren’t the best to send out together, for sure. They could find supplies and necessities easier than the rest, but without an anchor they got distracted too easily and excited over everything. He winced. Which meant neither of them paid attention to the signs in the sky or on the ground.

(He didn’t even know if Wild knew _how_ to read the sun or the stars. Just like the others, he had a map that would guide him towards roads and rivers should he ever get lost.)

“We didn’t go that far,” Hyrule said, “maybe walked around in circles for a bit but we were always heading east.”

Legend huffed and let the conversation die as the shadows grew cold. A breeze ruffled the treetops, ruffling the leaves as night insects crept out of their holes to create an orchestra in the growing darkness. Hyrule paused, looking up at the sky. The first stars winked into being—the brightest and most daring, the Dog, watching them.

“Do you _actually_ know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Hyrule said, holding back his sigh. “A map wouldn’t help you in here anyway.”

Legend’s answering silence was heavy between them, latching on like heavy lures and dragging them like fish towards an unknown fisherman.

Maybe he _should_ say something, Hyrule thought, glancing out of the corner of his eye to watch his companion. Describe how the stars would point them the rest of the way now that the sun was going to sleep, how the way the earth had captured the footprints of beasts and the buzz of bugs could guide them back to the river and, beyond that, where they had made up camp.

He opened his mouth—

Wood cracked underfoot. It wasn’t the sound of a snapping twig but something else, something that was meant to break. Deep beneath the leaves air hissed as it escaped.

Legend and Hyrule froze, staring at each other. Silence settled across the forest like a heavy, drowning quilt. Their hearts pounded in the crawling, slithering darkness.

“Don’t move,” Hyrule said, lowering with aching slowness to flatten his body along the ground. The dirt was dark and damp beneath their feet, small beetles working their way through freshly overturned soil. He hadn’t seen the signs; stupid and worried about other things.

A dangerous, idiotic mistake.

“What—”

“Shh,” Hyrule patted his hands across the dirt, trying to find the—

Legend shifted his weight.

Rope struck with all the swiftness of a serpent. It tightened around Legend’s leg, yanking him down to the earth before hauling him into one of the nearby trees. Birds took flight from their nests, fleeing from the dull ringing of a bell in the shadows to announce that _something_ had been captured.

“ _Mother_ —!” Legend cried, shoulder slamming into bark. He spewed curses as he spun, hands clawing at the rope latched around his boot. Nails clawed uselessly at the knot, reacting more on impulse as his sword slid from his back sheath and landed—along with his hat—in the bushes.

_Rope latching around his arm, ripping his shoulder from his socket. The howl for his blood rising beneath him as he climbed up into the tree, slicing down at anything that scrambled up after him._

Hyrule shook his head, scattering the memories.

“Hold on, hold on!” He cried, fumbling for his knife. It took a few, desperate tugs before it came free and he eyed nearby branches for a path upwards. They were thin—but so was he.

 _Run,_ a voice hissed in the back of his mind. _Run or they’ll catch you. They’ll find you. They’ll use you_.

If he—

If he—

Hyrule looked up.

Legend dangled upside down, eyes wide, and unblinking, watching the travelling hero. His muscles had frozen like a rabbit caught by a spotlight, chest heaving, face pale. Bushes and twigs splintered in the dark, the howl of a hunt rising from the shadows. It filled the spaces between branches and their ribs until there was nothing but the gleeful cries of monsters.

The sun vanished behind the trees, leaving them shrouded in the night.

 _Go!_ The voice howled.

Hyrule drew his sword with his other hand. Rubies glinted with unquenched bloodlust, silver pulsing against his palm. “You’re going to have to catch this,” he said, holding his knife up so the rising moonlight could glint off the edge of the blade. “Because I don’t think I’ll be able to get it to you twice.”

 _Have courage,_ a different voice, a kinder voice, said.

Legend stared at the broken, serrated edge of rusted steel, narrowed his eyes, and let go of the rope to stretch his hands towards the ground. His jaw hardened, his lips were pursed, but—after one long second where all Hyrule could hear was his pounding, wet heart—he nodded.

Boots and paws and clawed feet pounded through the trees, breaking all that were in their path.

Hyrule backed to the edge of the clearing. _One shot_. _You’ve got one shot._ He breathed in, breathed out, and murmured words of power. Magic spun from his throat, down his spine, into his legs. It tasted like the creation blood of the universe and settled in his lungs as if it was amber and he was a fly.

Something crashed through the underbrush.

Hyrule _ran_. Across the forest floor, sword heavy in his hand, shield pressed hard against his back, his feet went. They were sure and swift, darting him forward like a shadow.

Legend’s eyes widened.

Hyrule braced against the ground and pushed upwards. Magic sung in his veins, swirling beneath his soles and shoved him higher and higher—

He slapped the knife into Legend’s waiting palm, gripped his sword with both hands while he fell, and slammed into the Moblin that broke through the tree line.

It gurgled as it toppled, black blood spilling across Hyrule’s tunic as they hit the ground together. The Magic Sword sung, ripping through bone and flesh as it was yanked free and whistled through the air to parry a trident. Steel clashed, echoing into the night, and Hyrule cut down the Lizalfos before lunged for the second Moblin bursting from the trees.

Flames winked in the dark; lanterns of stalking hunters. 

Kicking a limp, heavy body off his sword, Hyrule hoisted his shield from his back.

“Your knife is shit!” Legend cried from above, spinning slowly as he worked at the rope around his ankle.

“Less talking, more cutting!” Hyrule snapped, dodging away from a mace that crashed through the trees. He tightened his grip on his sword and _pushed_ —

Rubies sparked like embers, the glow rising through the blade until it shone like the moon. Hyrule flung it out with a cry and the tip burst forth, swirling through the air to slice through flesh and wood. A snarling, horned Guma stepped out, blood dripping from a cut across its chest, and swung its other mace. Iron screamed over Hyrule’s head and hit one of the trees. Wood splintered, exploding outwards with a thunder-crack across the armoured shoulders of a sneering crimson Daira.

Hyrule braced his shield in front of him and gritted his teeth. The muscles in his shoulders grew taut, his hands shaking, knees almost collapsing beneath him. Everything was too fast, too slow. He needed to go, needed to get away—

Legend was still hanging above him.

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Hyrule tightened his grip on his sword and lifted it.

The Daira smiled a crocodile smile and leather wings burst from the trees.

Jumping upwards and thrusting his sword to the sky, Hyrule pierced the acheman that had dared to swoop over his head on its way to Legend through one of its bat-like wings. It howled as it fell, slamming hard into the dirt. Hyrule stomped down on its throat and bones crunched beneath his heel.

He left it to suffocate, black blood dripped from the Magical Sword as its tip pointed towards the monsters.

They growled, hesitating; their grip tightening around their weapons.

Hyrule eyes narrowed. He didn’t dare look back to check Legend’s progress. They would be overrun soon enough from the cacophony echoing through the woods. The Guma and Daira were just stalling for the rest of their hunting party to catch up.

He would have to—

The Daira charged, lifting one war axe above its head. Hyrule jumped, magic still singing in his bones, and pointed his sword down. Using his own weight and the heavy tug of gravity, he drove the blade through its spine. It died beneath his heels, whining and shaking as its last breath whistled out from its lungs.

Something wild and bright bloomed in Hyrule’s chest that felt nothing like terror and everything like hope.

He could do this. He could, he just—

Heavy metal hit the magical shield with a thunderous _crack_. It sent him backwards, vibrations ringing from Hyrule’s forearm to shoulder. He rolled across the ground, gasping for breath.

One tree became two and the stars grew blurry, blending in together.

“Hyrule! _Hyrule_!”

 _Legend_.

He hoisted his body up, stumbling to his feet—

Another blow against the shield sent him crashing to the ground, sword ripped from his fingers. Fuzzy, burning ringing bounced through his skull and he breathed in mossy, sticky dirt that got caught in his teeth. His arm was numb, shoulder throbbing.

 _Get up, Link_ , a voice told him from somewhere in the past and the future. It rang in him with gentle, golden light. _You must_ _get up_.

One hand pressed against the ground, pushing as hard as it could. The lungs trapped inside his ribcage weren’t working quite right and his stomach felt as though it had buried itself into his thighs.

Hyrule lifted his head. Two Gumas lifted their arms in perfect tandem, their maces circling for a third time.

Rolling out of the way, he fumbled with the weight on his arm, and felt the impact of iron reverberate through his bones. Shoving away his shield, Hyrule fumbled to his feet. The world swayed around and beneath him, twisting into some sick abstract painting that tried to swallow him into nothingness.

His sword was somewhere, but the mace was coming around again.

The first step was unsteady, the second was more sure.

Hyrule bared his teeth and stumbled forward, ripping one of the axes from the Daira’s limp grasp. It was slick against his hand, still-warm-blood making the wooden handles smooth.

With a scream and a heave, he threw the weapon as hard as he could. It spun like some grotesque boomerang, and buried itself blade first into the Guma’s skull.

A Moblin took its place, rising out of the dark, lantern light flickering across its shaded, void-like eyes. Hyrule scrambled back for his shield, twisting to check for any glimmer of light against steel—

The monster lurched, gurgling. It looked down at the red-orange blade pierced through the chest, at the blonde haired figure that stood in its way, and breathed its last.

Legend sneered, sword in one hand, hat in the other. His hair was full of leaves and mud was smeared across his cheek. “Fuck you,” he spat at the monster as it died. Ripping his blade free, he limped towards Hyrule, grabbed him underneath his arm, and hoisted him up.

Lightning burst from the centre of Hyrule’s chest, spreading across his bones until they blazed with white-fire heat.

“—shit, _shit_ , kid. Your fucking _arm_ —”

Hyrule tried to speak but his mouth was dry and his tongue was sticky. Dots burst in his vision, blocking out the woods with bursts of tiny supernovas. “S-sword?” He managed. “W-where—”

“Fuck. _Fuck_. Yeah. Hold on.”

A hand steadied him and vanished for a second before coming back. Fire danced among the trees like will-o-wisps, whispering for him to come closer, whispering for him to run away.

Cool metal pressed against his fingers. Hyrule grabbed on and grunted as the silhouettes of the trees blended all into one beast.

Legend hoisted him forward, away from the howling cries and deeper into the woods. “If you pass out on me I’ll kill you myself,” he snarled, the words burning along Hyrule’s skin, catching along his ribs and pulling. “You did good, okay? That was some damn good sword work but I _swear_ —”

“Don’t be mad,” Hyrule tried to say, but it was slurred and garbled and he felt as if his legs were becoming jelly. Each step was less steady than the last and his toes clipped his heel, almost sending both of them toppling forward.

“Mad?” Legend scoffed, “You think I’m mad? I’m fucking _furious_.” But his fingers didn’t tighten against Hyrule’s waist and his grip was steady. “I got caught by a rope trap! A fucking _rope_ trap—”

He stopped walking, words spilling out into curses that were twisted into a witch’s chant. “And I have no idea where the _fuck_ we are.”

“West,” Hyrule lifted his head, turning his tremulous gaze to the stars. They shifted to form multiple skies before they steadied and looked back down at the two heroes. “Go west to the river.”

Legend pulled him closer, breath hot against brown hair. “Alright, nature boy; which way is west?”

The Dog Star winked above them, nose of its constellation pointing north.

Hyrule shifted, his good arm still over Legend’s shoulder, and gestured with his sword into the darkness.

“That way,” he said.

oOo

They tripped through bushes, entering their camp with half gasps and stumbles. Hyrule grinned, tired but smug as Legend lowered him towards the ground.

“Told you,” he said, words muddled together.

Legend didn’t answer. “He needs a healing potion, _now_ ,” his voice was hard, sharpened like the blade he wielded. “His arm feels like a toothpaste tube filled with marbles—”

“What happened?”

“Trap. East of here. We might have to move camp—”

Hyrule blinked as gentle hands looped beneath his knees and around his back, hoisting him into the air. He tilted his head back, looking up at the hardened jaw line above him. “Hi,” he breathed.

Twilight blinked and looked down at him, a small, fond smile growing across his face after a moment. “Hello,” he said, voice rumbling through his chest and into Hyrule’s back. “What sort trouble did you find this time?”

A cork was popped and Hyrule grimaced at the sickly sweet smell of a healing elixir. “It was Legend’s fault,” he said.

Sky held a red potion, face pale as he looked over Hyrule’s arm. 

Some darting, uncatchable thought in the back of his mind wondered where his sword and shield had run off to. He probably should have worried about it earlier but it, like every other thought, it was swallowed by the buzzing numbness creeping up the back of his skull.

“Was it?” Twilight said as he slowly got down to the ground. The fire crackled nearby, heat seeping past blood stained clothing and into bruised skin.

Hyrule hummed.

“Holy shit,” someone breathed, “look at his _wrist_.”

He didn’t want to, so he stared up at Twilight instead.

“Set it,” a hard voice said. “Wild, go get a fairy.”

Hyrule breathed in and looked the glow of the fire to the stars beyond. He wondered if the Goddesses would hear him pray even though he was so far from home.

Fingers brushed his wrist and blackness claimed him before he could follow where ever that thought would have taken him.

oOo

He woke to fingers combing picking at tangles in his hair. Hyrule blinked, breathed, and curled in deeper into the warmth that settled beneath his blankets. The world was empty around him, leaving just the heat around him, the touch against his head, and the dreams that floated on the edge of his consciousness.

The hand stilled. “Hyrule?”

 _Legend_. He grunted out a question his lips were too lazy to ask and turned his face into his pillow. It shifted beneath him and, with a sigh, Hyrule opened his eyes.

The fire had burned down to embers, but it speckled his eyes like a lava coloured copy of when the galaxy was painted across the sky. He blinked a few times to clear his vision and realized that there was no fabric beneath his cheek. Instead, there was skin.

Hyrule jerked up. “Wha—”

“Whoa, _whoa_ , hold up—”

Gentle touches steadied him and Hyrule looked up at the furrowed brow of Legend. There was tightness in the corners of his lips, a narrowed appearance to his eyes.

“How do you feel?”

Hyrule blinked and checked himself over. There were bandages along his right arm that went from his wrist to his bicep, but there was only a dull, aching throb like he had walked too long without taking a rest. He opened and closed his hands, wincing when the bones cracked, but there was no stinging pain.

“Fine,” he said, looking up at Legend. “I’m—”

_A body swinging, cursing, hanging from a rope._

“Your leg!”

“Hey, _hey_!” Legend batted curious hands away from his boots. “I’m fine—just a little sore.”

Hyrule settled with a small frown. “You sure?”

“Yes. _Yes._ Fuck, of course I’m sure,” Legend snapped, hands folded in his lap, knuckles white. “You—” He paused. Swallowed. “Thank you.”

Blinking, Hyrule tilted his head to the side. “For what?”

“For not running.”

Something cold and hot dripped down into Hyrule’s ribs. It burned through his lungs, settling like thick stone in his stomach. “Is—is that what you think of me? That I would _leave_ you—”

“No!” Legend reached forward, grasping his shoulders. The sleeping bodies around them stirred and he lowered his voice. “No, no I don’t—I never—” He ducked his head, hiding behind his bangs, and pressed his forehead against Hyrule’s shoulder. “ _Thank you_.”

Hyrule sat, frozen. He stared over Legend’s head into the darkness beyond the trees, listening to the breathing against his neck and the soft whisper of the river before lifting his arms and wrapping the other hero in a hug.

“You’re welcome,” he said, pressing his cheek against dyed, pink hair. “But you’re an idiot.”

“Asshole.”

Hyrule hummed, grinned, and closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> writing a comprehensive fight scene? i don't know her ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
